Loretto, The

[Roundabout]

http://www.context.ca/pages/loretto/loretto_home.htm

The building is finished.

 

[syn]

Thanks for the update. Not a big fan of the precast but overall it's a nice conversion.

 

[Redroom Studios]

yep, decent looking result. Nice to keep atleast the sensibilities of a heritage building...

 

[urbandreamer]

Frankly, as an ex-Brunswick Avenue resident, I was outraged to hear the school was closing: short skirts on hot girls... Whenever I walk by this new "condo" I think back to Spring 1996, I was young, the girls were gorgeous, and everyone was dancing--yes dancing on Brunswick Avenue!--to the beat of Robert Mile's "Children." And those steps...fond memories....

Whatever happened to that very English Church Army on Brunswick Avenue? I always wanted to check it out but never did. (Edit: Maybe I did once: my first time Voting in the 1997 Federal Election?)
http://churcharmy.com/wordpress/?page_id=10
Meanwhile, following the privations the Church Army experienced during the depression, the Training Centre had been moved in 1935 to much larger quarters at 397 Brunswick Avenue in Toronto.

 

[urbandreamer]

16 March 2009 photo update

^Ha silly me nearly one year ago.

I was hanging in the Annex yesterday so took a few photos--nice looking project, if a bit overpriced.

 

[Therion]

The name reminds me of the gladiator's arena scene in "Life of Brian":


STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It's my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But... you can't have babies.
LORETTA: Don't you oppress me.
REG: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! -- Where's the fetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!

And now, back to the show.

 

[yyzer]

nice project, but to me somehow the balconies don't fit....something is off, they don't match the building....

/my 2cents..

 

[androiduk]

I agree, they could've just made them out of brick.

 

[cdr108]

brick would probably be too heavy for the supports over 4 floors.
however, cedar plank fencing in a horizontal plane would have been nice.

 

[urbandreamer]

Ancient thread but I recently walked by here and noticed some tarp covering part of the building. What's going on?

16 March 2013:

 

[marsh]

I remember reading somewhere - may have been the Toronto Life article on condos and fallling glass and the general shoddy construction of a lot of new buildings - out about a year ago or so - that this condo development has some major construction issues and that the condo board was actually in a law suit with the developer/builder. The article had highlighted a number of condo developments where boards were involved in lawsuits over shoddy construction. Anyways, I'm going by memory so if I'm wrong someone please correct me but that's what I seem to recall. So maybe they're trying to fix whatever is wrong?

 

[Southcore]

Your memory is correct marsh. From the article:

The condo corporation of the posh Loretto Academy, a 1914 heritage-building-cum-condo-development in the Annex, filed suit for $2.5 million in 2010 against Context Developments, as well as the architecture firm E.R.A., Veisman Consulting and the City of Toronto. According to the amended statement of claim filed last year, the Loretto’s deficiencies include cracked stucco and windows, poorly installed drainage systems, corroding balconies and leakage in the roof and foundation. Court documents allege that Context gave “instructions to hire the cheapest labour, and purchase the cheapest materials, and perform the minimum possible to complete construction. Context further instructed the defendant E.R.A. not to supervise the heritage restoration work, but merely to ‘sign off’ on it.” The defendants deny all the allegations.

Full article can be accessed here: http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/features/2012/07/24/faulty-towers/

 

[UrbanFervour]

I have friends who live there. It is mostly cosmetic fixes to exterior, including the pointing of the bricks, that the condo board was concerned about. The residents indeed threatened to sue the developer but I don't know if anything came of that.